TIMERS: undertaking wound assessment in the community

Abstract

Community nurses regularly treat patients with chronic wounds (those persisting over 6 weeks); with the complexity of both the patients' health needs and the wound itself, this often becomes a highly time-consuming task for the nurse. Wound assessment tools are designed to support all qualified nurses, regardless of whether the nurse possesses specialist wound care knowledge or not, in delivering safe and appropriate wound care. The wound assessment tool, using the acronym TIME, has been recently amended to now be known as TIMERS (Tissue, Infection/Inflammation, Moisture, Wound edge, Repair/Regeneration, Social). This article will examine what the newly amended wound assessment tool TIMERS represents, in addition to looking at the practical issues around its implementation in community settings.